The present invention relates to a process and to an apparatus for producing reinforced concrete components.
A process for producing concrete components, in particular components lightened by holes, is known which entails: laying and pretensioning a reinforcement frame, formed by a plurality of wires or strands, over one or more casting channels or beds which are 120 meters or more in length; casting concrete by means of a vibratory finishing machine or an extruder which performs a slow extrusion along the reinforcement frame; partially heated setting of the casting or component; cutting and consequently relaxing and cutting of the strands at the ends of the set casting; sectioning the casting into segments, for example by means of a saw or a disk which can be moved along the casting bed, and; removal of the segments or panels, performed by using a gantry crane which places the segments on appropriate removal trucks.
The solutions already proposed, although satisfactory from many points of view, allow to achieve only a limited productivity.
Furthermore, the preparation of the required prestress frames and the ordinary frames required to reinforce the components, especially large ones, cannot be performed easily and economically on-site, i.e. in the same place where the casting is performed.
Furthermore, the fact that the saw has to be moved to divide the component into segments on the casting bed is a factor which heavily affects the productivity of the above described process, since the casting bed remains occupied by the component for a long time even after setting is complete.